Info

Coordinating Institution
Gesundheit Österreich GmbH
National node website
Landing page of the Austrian National Public Health Institute
National Node Description

The Austrian National Public Health Institute (Gesundheit Österreich GmbH, GÖG) is the institution responsible for researching and planning public healthcare in Austria, and also acts as the national competence and funding centre for the promotion of health. Set up by federal law on 1 August 2006, GÖG has the federal government as its sole shareholder, represented by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection. It is a public non-profit limited liability company fully owned by the Republic of Austriam, organised in three business units.

ÖBIG - Österreichisches Bundesinstitut für Gesundheitswesen: The Austrian National Institute for Health Services Research, founded in 1973. It analyses data, provides comprehensive information in the field of public health policy, and facilitates reform and innovation processes.

BIQG - Bundesinstitut für Qualität im Gesundheitswesen: The Austrian National Institute for Quality in Health Care was founded in 2007 (Act on Healthcare Quality). It develops standards, maintain registries, evaluates the quality of healthcare interventions and provides information and decision support to promote high quality healthcare in Austria.

FGÖ - Fonds Gesundes Österreich: The Austrian Health Promotion Fund was founded in 1998 (Health Promotion Act). It promotes health and support initiatives to establish and improve knowledge, competences, and networks by granting financial assistance and offering guidance.

Governance and legal framework
Legal framework and institutional responsibilities

The Austrian health system is complex and fragmented:

  1. responsibilities are shared between the federal and the provincial (Länder) level
  2. many responsibilities have been delegated to self-governing bodies (social insurance and professional bodies of health service providers)
  3. health care financing is mixed, with the state (federal and Länder level) and social health insurance (SHI) funds contributing to different parts of the budget.

Health-related legislation is made at the federal level, usually initiated
by the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection (BMSPK, in brief: MoH). The nine states (Länder) are responsible for ensuring the availability of adequate hospital capacity, including outpatient care in hospitals, and they finance a major part of inpatient and outpatient care provided by hospitals. Ambulatory (extramural) care is regulated by collective contracts negotiated between self -governing bodies of SHI funds and providers.

These three players and the Austrian Ministry of Finance are the main actors in the two federal bodies for planning, organisation and financing of health care in Austria

  • The Federal Health Commission (Bundesgesundheitskommission)
  • The Federal Health Agency (Bundesgesundheitsagentur, BGA)

Further actors besides the national node GÖG that support the MoH are

  • The Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety (Österreichische Agentur für Gesundheit und Ernährungssicherheit GmbH, AGES), a joint agency of the MoH and Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Regions and Tourism. It is in charge of the protection of human, animal and plant health, of medical and drug safety, and
    of food security and consumer protection along the food-chain.
  • The Austrian Federal Office for Safety in Health Care together with the Austrian Medicines and Medical Devices Agency (AGES Medizinmarktaufsicht, a section of AGES) is responsible for market authorisation of medicinal products and the assessment of the efficacy and safety of medicinal products and medical devices as well as market surveillance and inspection of manufacturers).
  • The Electronic Health Record Institution (ELGA Ltd.) is a joint institution of the federal government, the state governments and the SHI funds. ELGA is responsible for the further development of the national e-health infrastructure (electronic health records, vaccination certificates)

Further relevant actors in the field of health information and data are the Chambers of Professional Bodies (e.g., the Austrian Chamber of Doctors which maintains the registry of phycisians) or the national statistical bureau "Statistik Austria", whose tasks are defined by the Austrian Federal Statistics Act.

Health information strategy

Currently, there is no explizit federal health information system strategy in Austria, but many elements of our health care policy rely on the use of health information.

For instance there is a detailed monitoring of the ongoing health care reform (Zielsteuerung Gesundheit) and the national Health Care Targets in place with a number of indicators and parameters that were jointly agreed by all relevant actors. These monitoring exercise and also the national health care planning system include data from many actores from federal level, from the Länder and from SHI.

Further involved stakeholders such as the National Public Health Institute or the national Bureaus of Statistics are engaged in direct health data collection or are involved in results analysis or scientific research.

Health information sources and players
Main players (institutions)

See above

Health information infrastructure and management
Existence of a unique patient identifier or general personal identifier?
Yes
Name of identifier
Bereichsspezifisches Personenkennzeichen für Gesundheit (bPK-GH), i.e. sector specific person identifiers
Updated on 23 November 2023